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Dan Clark Stealth Review (State of the Art Headphone)

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I’ll say personally I find T1 far more enjoyable than anything from DCA I’ve heard, for all genres, but thats mainly due to that blunted/damped feeling/quality DCA has, completely killing any musical enjoyment for me, where the T1 sounds much more dynamic and lively.
That said I’ve never thought much of any of the lower end Beyers I’ve heard, most of them felt like and a sounded like cheap plastic toys, but better than most of the truly cheap stuff I usually saw them demoed along side in pro audio shops.
The aeon 2 noire are very clean, transients are extremely natural for a bright headphone. Thd is very low. If you play music with good transients, the headphone will not at all be blunted nor damped.
 

Rthomas

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The build is the main reason I’ve tried to like his headphones. I haven’t tried the V2, just the original aeon, and all the aether closed and open variations, which all had that issue to a huge degree. So I’ve mostly given up on the brand - well, as a blind purchase at least. Really want to demo one of the newer models to see if the issue remains, but based on the people I’ve spoken to, it does - some are just not bothered by it.
I agree about the “over damped “ sound and I can definitely hear it compared to other more lively headphones. A few years ago I bought a lightly used Aeon Closed in mint condition at 50% off. I was thrilled at getting a great deal but within 10 minutes of listening to it I found it boring compared to my HD650 and I sold it within 48 hours.
 

Rthomas

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The aeon 2 noire are very clean, transients are extremely natural for a bright headphone. Thd is very low. If you play music with good transients, the headphone will not at all be blunted nor damped.

They are multiple reviewers who have experienced the same lack of dynamics and overdamped sound with DCA products.

Reviewers who work with companies that sell DCA products.

How do you explain that?

We’re not talking about THD here.

The Stealth is not some magical breakthrough in headphone technology with zero downsides

IMHO DCA made an engineering choice to get as close to Harman as possible as this helps with marketing. Nothing wrong with that but the price to pay for this tailored FR is damping.

I think a headphone driver with minimal material between it and the ear is superior for dynamics and fun factor ( eg Utopia and LCD5)
 

Robbo99999

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They are multiple reviewers who have experienced the same lack of dynamics and overdamped sound with DCA products.

Reviewers who work with companies that sell DCA products.

How do you explain that?

We’re not talking about THD here.

The Stealth is not some magical breakthrough in headphone technology with zero downsides

IMHO DCA made an engineering choice to get as close to Harman as possible as this helps with marketing. Nothing wrong with that but the price to pay for this tailored FR is damping.

I think a headphone driver with minimal material between it and the ear is superior for dynamics and fun factor ( eg Utopia and LCD5)
That is thin ice though, I don't think there's much there that can be proven. As you say, you use "IMHO", and I think that really is what that is - there's nothing proven there. That's a bit of a "thin ice" post.
 

Rthomas

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That is thin ice though, I don't think there's much there that can be proven. As you say, you use "IMHO", and I think that really is what that is - there's nothing proven there. That's a bit of a "thin ice" post.

I’m just sharing my subjective experience that has been shared by reviewers who have heard everything.

Unlike Jude at Headfi @Resolve is a reviewer who doesn’t subscribe to the “everything is awesome “ philosophy to maximise advertising money.

Stealth and Expanse don’t feature in his list of favourites and the reason is not the measured frequency response
 

Rthomas

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That is thin ice though, I don't think there's much there that can be proven. As you say, you use "IMHO", and I think that really is what that is - there's nothing proven there. That's a bit of a "thin ice" post.

Subjective evaluations of high end audio gear are all thin ice posts.

Does anybody know the hearing abilities of prominent headphone reviewers? They may be half deaf from all their testing.
 

majingotan

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They are multiple reviewers who have experienced the same lack of dynamics and overdamped sound with DCA products.

Reviewers who work with companies that sell DCA products.

How do you explain that?

I’m just sharing my subjective experience that has been shared by reviewers who have heard everything.

Unlike Jude at Headfi @Resolve is a reviewer who doesn’t subscribe to the “everything is awesome “ philosophy to maximise advertising money.

Stealth and Expanse don’t feature in his list of favourites and the reason is not the measured frequency response

YMMV as always. My personal subjective experiences with Stealth, Expanse and Open X are that they're just as dynamic, slam like a truck, snaps with authority, etc. as Focal Utopia. Clear OG and Clear MG sounded "overdamped", "veiled" and lacking resolution compared to my Aeon Open X, Expanse and Stealth
 

Rthomas

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YMMV as always. My personal subjective experiences with Stealth, Expanse and Open X are that they're just as dynamic, slam like a truck, snaps with authority, etc. as Focal Utopia. Clear OG and Clear MG sounded "overdamped", "veiled" and lacking resolution compared to my Aeon Open X, Expanse and Stealth

We can agree to disagree, it’s only audio equipment after all. Cheers.
 

usern

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They are multiple reviewers who have experienced the same lack of dynamics and overdamped sound with DCA products.
Many reviewers just parrot each other and say things that they think should be said. Especially smaller ones. Would help if the reviewers gave specific definition of how dynamics or slam should sound. What song, what exact position in the song and sound, how should it sound like?
 

jae

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They are multiple reviewers who have experienced the same lack of dynamics and overdamped sound with DCA products.

Reviewers who work with companies that sell DCA products.

How do you explain that?

Simple answer: One or two reviewers who may or may not know what they are talking about have an opinion of what they believe they heard and share it on the internet somewhere. Those who consume their content directly or indirectly either believe it or decide to "check" and magically happen hear exactly what the 'trusted person' or 'consensus' said they were supposed to hear. Then all those people repeat the same thing online and the sentiment spreads exponentially. Cognitive and perceptual biases in audio are a long-established normalcy to academics, and there is a lot of writing on this.

Does anybody know the hearing abilities of prominent headphone reviewers? They may be half deaf from all their testing.
Not unlikely. I think a more plausible explanation of the "low dynamics" phenomenon is simply reviewers/listeners accustomed to or prefer other frequency responses, and are perhaps comparing it to another headphones at different volume levels. Lower distortion and more smoothness also lends to intuitively playing music louder than one may be typically accustomed to. Loudness is a major factor in determining the overall tonality you hear independent of FR due to equal-loudness contour in humans, and certain FRs may simply sound more appropriate or more correct at varying SPLs to some people. This is why volume-matched, preferably blind-tested evaluation should be the bare minimum in subjective assessments, yet virtually no one does this absolute minimum.
 
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jae

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Would help if the reviewers gave specific definition of how dynamics or slam should sound. What song, what exact position in the song and sound, how should it sound like?
I'm not sure if that would even help, since that would require some sort of reliable objective reference- most headphone reviewers are allergic to speakers, let alone active studio monitors or a treated listening space. Many don't even use transparent electronics. How they "think" it should sound after only hearing it on 20 different headphones and tube amps is conjecture at best- especially when they are trying to sell you something with affiliate links.
 

Resolve

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I’m just sharing my subjective experience that has been shared by reviewers who have heard everything.

Unlike Jude at Headfi @Resolve is a reviewer who doesn’t subscribe to the “everything is awesome “ philosophy to maximise advertising money.

Stealth and Expanse don’t feature in his list of favourites and the reason is not the measured frequency response
My main reasoning though is to do with the tonality. For whatever reason they just don't sound right to me, despite measuring well. This is one of those "headphones behave differently on different heads" things most likely, and I've verified this with other listeners on multiple units as well.

Edit: so what I'm saying here is that the issue could just be down to how it is on MY head, or others who hear it the way I do, but maybe the majority still hear it closer to the graph.

The thing is, this stuff is all about confidence - confidence that a thing is likely to be right for you before buying it. This stuff is super expensive, so I get wanting to anchor that confidence to the measurement. But those of us who spend the majority of our time scrutinizing these products, we'll tend to find sometimes it doesn't line up with our experiences. I'm not saying don't get your confidence from graphs, merely that there may be more to the end experience for individuals than what you see there.

For the subjective stuff, I completely sympathize with some of the comments here - there's no concrete definition of 'good' that we can all agree on, or even when things are merely awaiting a more complete analysis of FR. And in that sense, subjective reports are far worse for providing that confidence. But... With that said, there is a kind of rhetoric that a number of us use in the same way. So for example, when Crinacle or Android describe something, I know exactly what they're talking about, because I've built up a familiarity with how they use those terms. So... While it's still worse, and less straightforward than a graph, you can still find something useful from subjective reports as well in my opinion.
 
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usern

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Stealth and Expanse don’t feature in his list of favourites and the reason is not the measured frequency response

My main reasoning though is to do with the tonality. For whatever reason they just don't sound right to me, despite measuring well. This is one of those "headphones behave differently on different heads" things most likely, and I've verified this with other listeners on multiple units as well.
So it is measured frequency response that you don't like about Stealth? Are there any headphones that measure close to Harman Target that you like?

Measuring well against Harman Target and liking the Harman Target are different things. I don't like Harman Target exactly, but I appreciate it, because it's a good baseline from where to EQ to my own taste. EQing to Harman Target and adjusting it afterwards has given me much better results than trying to EQ without first adjusting to Harman Target.
 
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Resolve

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So it is measured frequency response that you don't like about Stealth? Are there any headphones that measure close to Harman Target that you like
No I like the measured result - it just doesn't sound like that to me. And yeah, I think headphones that are Harman tuned generally have a solid balance.
 

usern

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No I like the measured result - it just doesn't sound like that to me. And yeah, I think headphones that are Harman tuned generally have a solid balance.
Have you tried to EQ to your liking? I think that is quite important factor about headphones - how easy it is to EQ to your liking - and is almost universally ignored by reviewers. Sonarworks kind of does it and uses their own target.
 

Resolve

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Have you tried to EQ to your liking? I think that is quite important factor about headphones - how easy it is to EQ to your liking - and is almost universally ignored by reviewers. Sonarworks kind of does it and uses their own target.
Of course, I EQ everything, and generally recommend EQ to get the best sound quality possible. People don't like that I do it but this is the most obvious form of improvement for any headphone.
 

Robbo99999

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My main reasoning though is to do with the tonality. For whatever reason they just don't sound right to me, despite measuring well. This is one of those "headphones behave differently on different heads" things most likely, and I've verified this with other listeners on multiple units as well.

Edit: so what I'm saying here is that the issue could just be down to how it is on MY head, or others who hear it the way I do, but maybe the majority still hear it closer to the graph.

The thing is, this stuff is all about confidence - confidence that a thing is likely to be right for you before buying it. This stuff is super expensive, so I get wanting to anchor that confidence to the measurement. But those of us who spend the majority of our time scrutinizing these products, we'll tend to find sometimes it doesn't line up with our experiences. I'm not saying don't get your confidence from graphs, merely that there may be more to the end experience for individuals than what you see there.

For the subjective stuff, I completely sympathize with some of the comments here - there's no concrete definition of 'good' that we can all agree on, or even when things are merely awaiting a more complete analysis of FR. And in that sense, subjective reports are far worse for providing that confidence. But... With that said, there is a kind of rhetoric that a number of us use in the same way. So for example, when Crinacle or Android describe something, I know exactly what they're talking about, because I've built up a familiarity with how they use those terms. So... While it's still worse, and less straightforward than a graph, you can still find something useful from subjective reports as well in my opinion.
The bit I bolded in your post, I think that's what it is, especially given that you know what frequency response target you like from the freedom you have to measure your own headphones on GRAS & then listen to them EQ'd to your favourite target. It could also be down to how The Stealth reacts to the GRAS rig too, to some degree. Perhaps the most authentic Harman sounding headphone would be the headphone model (EQ'd to the Harman Target) that was used in their experiments in the creation of the Target Curve (the headphone they gave to the subjects to tweak bass & treble), it was the HD800 wasn't it? Although I don't know if it was the same headphone model for all the different 2013 / 2015 / 2018 Harman Curve versions. I think the HD800 was used in the 2013 Harman Target Creation. Perhaps a Harman EQ'd HD800 is the most authentic Harman Headphone in terms of what the curve should really sound like. This is operating on the premise that 2 different headphone models won't sound exactly the same if EQ'd to the same Target - they'd sound similar or close but not identical (even taking unit to unit variation out of the loop by assuming a person owned a GRAS & measured the individual units). One caveat though perhaps is that if the two headphone models are very close to eachother in their physical design (dimensions & shape of the earcups and perhaps similar pad materials), then perhaps you couldn't distinguish the difference between them when both are EQ'd to the same target.
 
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Tachyon88

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I own these and agree that it sounds like an overly damped room which takes away some of the energy presence, but the bass is still there when the track calls for it. I listen to all my headphone with harmon eq too.
 

bearcatsandor

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I own these and agree that it sounds like an overly damped room which takes away some of the energy presence, but the bass is still there when the track calls for it. I listen to all my headphone with harmon eq too.
Are you saying that the Stealth's sound that way? I may be a bit lost in this thread as it is at present.
 
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